External HDD permissions

collisster

collisster

collisster

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I use an old SATA hard drive from my old XP computer as an external hard drive for file storage to prevent clogging up my MBP.
When I try and write files to it, there is an error saying that it is read only. I did some googling and found there is something to do with the format of the HDD.
What can I do to make this HDD work ? hopefully not losing all of my files!

Thanks
Martin
 
To make it fully compatible you'll need to format it with GUID and HFS using disk utility. Copy the data off first, format it and copy the data back. Job will be a good 'un.
 
I've done the transfer onto an old machine and formatted it into 2 partitions, its mac os extended format but a master boot record scheme. do I want to re partition it in GUID?

cheers
 
Hi Guys, hope you don't mind me tagging on this thread but I have a very similar question.

I'm selling my PC, just bought a new iMac 21.5" and spent the past two weeks enjoying myself finding my way round it and how the different O/S works.

I too have an extra 100gb SATA drive from XP machine which I have installed in a caddy, formatted in XP as one partition using NTFS. I then copied over in one folder 50Gb of files [from Office mainly] and about 1000 family photos. I have purchased and installed Office11 for the mac.

[1] Will I now be able to plug this drive into USB port of Mac and read/copy files over to new machine?

[2] If so, will I be able to carry on using this external drive as a backup/storage drive to the iMac?

[3] If not, do I need to copy this folder back to XP machine [Before it goes] and reformat the external drive using the iMac then copy files back from XP machine to external drive?

If above is correct, will XP machine see the external drive that has been formatted with iMac so I can copy files over to it?

Hope I've explained what I'm wanting to do in a way you can understand but although I am fairly used to XP after several years of use, iMac & Snow leopard is completely new to me, I really don't want to lose my files, especially the photos which are of my son and grandchildren. :confused:
 
Anyone able to help me please, need to know answer to above question by tomorrow [Wed 15th] at latest.

Thankyou for taking the time to read. dj. :confused:
 
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